Women in the Life of Balzac eBook

The relative that caused Balzac the most discomfort
was the Countess Rosalie Rzewuska, nee Princess Lubomirska,
wife of Count Wenceslas Rzewuski, Madame Hanska’s
uncle. She seems to have been continually hearing
either that he was married, or something that was detrimental,
and kept him busy denying these reports:

“I have here your last letter in
which you speak to me of Madame Rosalie and of Seraphita.
Relative to your aunt, I confess that I am ignorant
by what law it is that persons so well bred can believe
such calumnies. I, a gambler! Can your aunt
neither reason, calculate nor combine anything except
whist? I, who work, even here, sixteen hours
a day, how should I go to a gambling-house that
takes whole nights? It is as absurd as it is
crazy. . . . Your letter was sad; I felt it
was written under the influence of your aunt. .
. . Let your aunt judge in her way of my works,
of which she knows neither the whole design nor the
bearing; it is her right. I submit to all judgements.
. . . Your aunt makes me think of a poor Christian
who, entering the Sistine chapel just as Michael-Angelo
has drawn a nude figure, asks why the popes allow
such horrors in Saint Peter’s. She judges
a work from at least the same range in literature
without putting herself at a distance and awaiting
its end. She judges the artist without knowing
him, and by the sayings of ninnies. All that give
me little pain for myself, but much for her, if
you love her. But that you should let yourself
be influenced by such errors, that does grieve me
and makes me very uneasy, for I live by my friendships
only.”

In spite of this, Balzac wished to obtain the good
will of “Madame Rosalie,” and sympathized
with her when she lost her son. But she had a
great dislike for Paris, and after the death of M.
de Hanski, she objected to her niece’s going
there. The novelist felt that she was his sworn
enemy, and that she went too far in her hatred of everything
implied in the word Paris[*]; yet he pardoned
her for the sake of her niece.

[*] The reason why Madame Rosalie had such a horror
of Paris was that
her mother was guillotined
there,—­the same day as Madame
Elizabeth. Madame Rosalie
was only a child at that time, and was
discovered in the home of
a washerwoman.

It was Caliste Rzewuska, the daughter of this aunt,
whom Balzac had in mind when he sketched Modeste
Mignon. She was married to M. Michele-Angelo
Cajetani, Prince de Teano and Duc de Sermoneta, to
whom Les Parents pauvres is dedicated.

Balzac seems to have had something of the same antipathy
for Madame Hanska’s sister Caroline that he
had for her aunt Rosalie, but since he wrote to his
Predilecta many unfavorable things of a private
nature about his family, she may have done the same
concerning hers, so that he may not have had a fair
opportunity of judging her. He was friendly towards
her at times, and she is the Madame Cherkowitch of
his letters.